The primary reason that so many Christians are ill-equipped to defend marriage is that they don’t understand its theocentric nature. They don’t understand God’s purpose in creating marriage. They don’t understand that marriage was created to be a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They don’t understand the husband as a picture of Christ and the wife as a picture of the church. As a result, our marriages have become extremely self-centered. In this sermon, Scott T. Brown — the director of the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches — examines Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:22-33 and helps us to understand what it means to have a gospel-centered marriage.

This morning we have a special speaker with us. It's a great joy to have with us a man who has had a great impact on my life in ministry. His name is Scott Brown. Scott Brown, he is a president of an organization called the N.C.F.I.C., which is based out of North Carolina, as well as a pastor of a local church there in Wake Forest called Hope Baptist Church. And he spoke to us yesterday as a group of men, and then he spoke in the Sunday School Hour.

And he's really focusing the message today around family and the importance of building our families, our marriages on the Word of God and having a family that honors God. And so we're just so pleased to have him with us. I was privileged to meet Scott, I think it was four years ago. I had the opportunity to travel to North Carolina with a couple young people, went to a conference that he hosts there every year at Ridgecrest and Conference Center and was tremendously blessed by his ministry and just the preaching of the word. One of the things that I have noticed about Scott through the years is he is a man who I really sense just the power of God resting on his life and ministry and it doesn't take you long to get in a conversation with Scott or be around Scott and you just sense the power of God in his life and ministry And that comes from a heart of a man who has truly submitted his life unto God, and he has devoted his life to really ministering around things of the family and family discipleship, the importance of that, Reformation of the church and family for the glory of God and He has a very effective ministry and we thank the Lord to be able to hear the word from him today Father we come before you today with Thanksgiving in our hearts for all that you have done of force.

We thank you for the gospel We thank you that father in the gospel we have found by the blood of Christ salvation for our souls and Father we thank you for the the faith that you give to us, the grace that you have given to us, that we might know you and experience a relationship with you here. And Father, we just pray that if there's someone here today that does not know Jesus Christ, and maybe they've been very religious all their life and yet have never come into a relationship repenting of sin and knowing Christ, that Father today in the preaching of the word and fellowship of the saints, Lord, you would work on that heart today. Father, I pray for our families. Lord, there are so many pressures in this nation in which we live and in the culture and the day and age in which we live, and from our own sinful hearts. And Father, I just pray that as we listen to your word today, you would help each one of us to examine our individual place in the family where you have us, whether we are children, whether we are husbands or wives, whatever the case may be, that Father, we would build our lives upon your word and in obedience to your commands.

And Lord, for each one of us today, that Lord, we would grow in grace. And these things, Father, we pray in Jesus' name and for His glory. Amen. Well, it's good to be here. It's such a joy to be in this beautiful place.

I grew up in the West. I live in the East. And I'm so glad to be back in this region of the country. It's such a beautiful place. I'd like to speak about what is really the fountain of all of society and all of family life and all of everything else and that is marriage.

And I began in the first hour to sort of lay groundwork for that. And I really want to just continue with this whole subject of marriage. And I'd like to read what is the longest and what is the most comprehensive passage of Scripture in the Bible on marriage. It's Ephesians 5. And I'd like to just ask if you would rise in honor for the reading of the Word.

I'm going to read beginning in verse 22 of Ephesians chapter 5 if you could find your place there. Ephesians 5.22 of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church, and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify her and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Would you pray with me? Oh God, I pray that You would open up these words to our hearts and cause them to be living epistles in our lives.

That You would help us to walk in these ways. That You would show us the power of Your word at work in the way that we are married together, the way that we conduct our family life. Oh Lord, I pray that you would use the people in this church to declare the glory of the power of the gospel through their love and their marriages. I pray, oh Lord, that You would break any chains that are upon any marriages, that You would destroy any pride upon any marriages that is hindering this great work of love that You've ordained for Your church. I pray, Lord, that You would heal wounds.

I pray, Lord, that You would give a greater sense of love and joy in the marriages that are here today as a result of this. And now, Lord, we know none of this is possible unless your Holy Spirit fall upon us and we find ourselves hearing the word of truth as it is by the power of Your Spirit. And I pray that You would protect this church from any work of man, any word of man, that You would help me not to misrepresent anything that is so good and so beautiful that You have stated here in these words. Amen. Please be seated.

Now marriage in this passage is portrayed as really, it's a theater. It's a theater upon which the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is displayed. That is the primary purpose that God has created marriage. That it would be one scene after another in a husband and wife's lives that would declare the power of the love of God that is in Jesus Christ. And in this scene that we have in Ephesians 5, you have two parties.

There is the husband and there is the wife. And each party, they have their own lines. They have their own role in the play. They have a particular role to play. They have a particular thing to represent in this presentation to the world of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And if you would have a marriage for the glory of God, you first of all have to know who you are in the story. Because marriage is a story. It's a living story that's played out in the world. But you have to know who you are. And you have to know what your lines are.

And in this passage of scripture, a husband is a representative of Jesus Christ. He's not his own. He is representing someone greater than himself. And so his marriage isn't really about himself. It's about the declaring of the truth and the love of Jesus Christ.

And so a man can't really know who he is in marriage until he knows what role he's playing in that marriage. You have to know who you are in a marriage. And one of the greatest questions you can ever ask a husband is, do you know who you are? Do you know who you're designed to be? And you're designed to be a representative of Jesus Christ.

And it's the same thing with a wife. A wife needs to know who she is. If you don't know who you are, you'll never know how to be married. You'll never know how to respond to an imperfect husband. You'll never know how to go through the difficulties that exist by being married, and particularly being married to a husband.

Particularly being married to a sinner. Particularly being married to a man of all things. And God has designed marriage so that every wife would know who she is. And she would know what her lines are. And she would know that her life is not her own.

But she's been placed in a marriage in order to declare something greater than herself. And who is she? She represents the church. Every wife represents the church of Jesus Christ. And if a wife doesn't understand who she is, she'll never be able to engage marriage for the glory of God, because She'll always be caught up in her own self.

She'll always be obsessed by her own feelings. She'll always be wanting to be herself. She'll always want to be expressing herself and finding herself. And the same thing with a man. He'll always be wanting to try to be his own man.

These are the most disastrous things that can happen in a marriage. A woman who wants to be herself and a man who wants to be his own man. These are tragic things that happen in marriages. But when you find a man who knows who He is, and He's not His own. He's a representative of Jesus Christ.

And when you find a woman who knows who she is, and she has no uncertainty about her identity and her role, What you find is a powerful and a beautiful demonstration of the gospel of Jesus Christ that is demonstrated by God who sent his Son into the world to redeem sinners so that those sinners would turn and they would become submissive and obedient children of their father. Because marriage is a representative relationship. And you know, everybody who's not married here in this room needs to be really really clear about what you're preparing for. You need the Word of God to help you prepare for marriage. There's so many terrible ideas that have filled your mind about marriage.

And here's my advice. Fill your mind with the Word of God. Prepare yourself with God's Word so that you'll know what it means to be married. You know, I talk to people who've been married 10, 20, 30 years and they have hurt each other, they've done so much damage, and finally they come to the place and they say, I never knew what marriage was for until this day when this was preached to me. I didn't realize who I was.

And they always say the same thing. I wish I could turn the clock back. And you young people who are not married yet, Don't be that kind of person who wishes you could turn the clock back 20 years because you didn't really immerse your mind in the Word of God to cleanse your mind from all the pollution about marriage that has filled your brain because of this culture that we happen to live in. And so we have to recognize that we think about marriage in a particular way. And this passage really clears up who we are and what we are all about.

It resets all the expectations. It establishes roles. It casts a vision. It creates really a beautiful and a perfect vision of marriage. And what the church needs today, it really needs the word of God and its testimony.

It needs the sword of the word of God to cut through all the bankrupt garbage and to teach people what it actually means to be married. And what we learn here in this passage is that marriage is a type. Marriage is a metaphor. You know what a type is. It's an earthly thing that represents something heavenly.

You know, like Jesus said, I am the bread of life. And what you learn from that is that bread is just a type. It does nourish you. But bread has been put in the world for the same reason light has been put in the world, for the same reason water has been put in the world, for the same reason the sun has been put in the world, put in the world. It's put in the world in order to remind you of something greater, so that every time you see the light, every time you taste the bread, every time you see the river, every time you see the stars, every time you see whatever, whatever you see a door, whatever you see a window, everything points to heaven.

Everything on the earth is a metaphor, it's a type for something greater. And marriage is the very same thing. It's a type. It's always meant to point to something greater, And it's meant to point to Jesus Christ's love for the church and the church's submission and honor and an adoration toward her savior. And so Ephesians five speaks of this.

Now, when you get to Ephesians 5, I don't know if you noticed it when I read it, but you encounter words that indicate that the Apostle Paul is making comparisons. He is making comparisons of the type. And the words as or just as occur seven times in 12 verses. And he's comparing two things. He's comparing Christ to a husband.

And he's comparing a wife to the church. So he's making these comparisons so that you understand in no uncertain terms that marriage is a metaphor. That marriage is designed to point to something greater. Your marriage is not about you. It really is about the declaration, the demonstration of the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

And that is the purpose of your marriage. And if you don't understand that that's the purpose of your marriage, you are always gonna have a hard time in your marriage. You're always gonna have a hard time knowing who you are. You're always gonna have a hard time knowing what your lines are. Knowing what you're supposed to do in that certain situation that you're in.

But if you know who you are, and if you know where to get your lines, then you'll always know what to do. And you won't be a confused, beaten up person in this world, as so many are, in their marriages. And the reason they are is they filled their minds up with their own idea of what their marriage is all about. And they haven't been washed by the water of the Word, they haven't had their minds cleansed, they haven't had their minds renewed by the washing of the water of the Word. And that's always the greatest issue for any marriage.

Is your mind washed by the water of the Word? Or Are you just doing your own thing? Are you just playing your own game? Are you just trying to be your own person? That's always the fundamental issue in a marriage.

And Ephesians 5 points a laser beam light on that one issue. So marriage is like, another way to say it is, marriage is like a story within a story. It's a microcosmic story that is within a greater story of redemption. And so You need to be thinking about the story of your marriage, because your marriage is telling a story. But what kind of story is it?

What are the lines that you're now speaking in your marriage? What do the roles look like in your marriage? Because your story Is a story within a greater and grander story. Of the divine storyline, And that's why, you know, when you come to the family, the way it's manifested in the world with a father and a mother and children, you're really talking about the fact that every aspect of family life is a declaration of this great story. I've already said that a wife is telling the story of the church.

She is the church. But wives, you are the church. That's who you are. Husbands, you know who you are. You are playing the role of Jesus Christ.

Everything you say and do must come from Christ. You're not your own. Children, the same way, you're not your own. God's called you to honor your father and mother and to obey your parents because this is right. Because you're playing a role.

Children are playing a role in the world. They are declaring what it means to have a child of God to honor His Father and his mother. That's what it means to be a Christian. It's to honor God and to obey Him and to submit to Him. That's what real Christians do.

Fake Christians don't do that. Fake Christians disobey God. Real Christians have a heart to obey Him. They want to obey Him. And every part of family life is a demonstration of one aspect of the gospel.

Even single people, even unmarried people are playing a role. They are demonstrating something in this world. Even singleness is a metaphor. Jesus Christ made this so clear in Matthew 19 where He said that in heaven there is no marriage nor being given in marriage. So there's no marriage in heaven.

And one of the issues of family life is that it causes distraction from the things of the kingdom of God. The apostle Paul said that he would wish that many more would actually be single so that they could have single-minded devotion to Jesus Christ. Because married people have concerns of their family life, but the single life is a laser being focus on the kingdom of God. And that's why every single person should devote, you know, all of their energies to the kingdom of heaven. They have more time, they sometimes have more resources, and they should devote those resources for the greatest advantage of the kingdom of heaven.

Don't waste your single years playing around. Use your single years for the greatest advantage of the King of Heaven. But you need to recognize that your single years are also a metaphor. And what are they a metaphor of? Your single years on earth are a metaphor of heaven.

When you have one husband. When you have no family. Where you have single-minded devotion to Jesus Christ. Singleness is a metaphor as well. Every part of life, every part of family life is a metaphor of something greater.

And Ephesians 5 makes this very clear that marriage is a declarative relationship and it demonstrates the power of the love of Jesus Christ. And marriages are designed for a demonstration of heaven on earth. So that in a family there's a kingdom that's created. It's a kingdom of love. It's a kingdom of delight.

It's a kingdom of submission. Why is it that way? Because that's the way it is in heaven. The Father in heaven, the Trinity, the Holy Trinity. The Father loves the Son.

The Son delights to do the will of the Father. The Son submits to the Father in His incarnation. It's a world of delight and submission and love. And It's the pattern for all family life. And so family life is designed to paint a picture of that marvelous story of love that is experienced in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit.

In that way, what husbands and wives are designed to do when they come together in marriage is to create a new kingdom and it's a kingdom of love. In this passage it says, you know, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and will cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. They cleave to one another and they create a new kingdom. And it's designed to be a kingdom of love, a kingdom of happiness, a kingdom of truth, a kingdom of everything in the kingdom of heaven. That's why God charges fathers to teach their children diligently when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up.

Why? Because you're filling your family with the words of the kingdom of heaven, you're demonstrating the love and the power and the truth of God every day. When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, all through the day, the family life is designed to be an experience of the kingdom of heaven. And it is done as a result of the teaching of the Word of God in the family. That's why you should never neglect the Word of God in your family.

You will never have a Kingdom of Love. You'll never have a true Kingdom of happiness unless the Word of God has created it. You can create fake happiness. You can create fake love in a family. But unless it's created by the Word of God, it's not enduring, it's not real, it's not eternal.

So In order to understand Ephesians 5, you have to recognize what the Apostle Paul is doing. He is making a comparison. And he's saying, wives, you need to know who you are. You are not your own. And you can't use your own lines.

You must use the lines of Jesus Christ Himself. And that's the whole matter. Now another thing that you need to understand about Ephesians 5 is that it doesn't stand in isolation. It's not just a text about marriage and that just stands alone. It's part of a whole chain of reasoning that the Apostle Paul is working through.

And he's telling the Ephesian church what it looks like in a marriage when you're filled with the Holy Spirit. He starts this discussion in Ephesians 5.18 where he says, don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then he starts itemizing what happens when you're filled with the Holy Spirit. And the first thing that happens is you start speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. In other words, in the church, your whole conversation changes.

You want to talk about the Kingdom of God. And it's in singing and it's talking and the church just they talk different and they sing different. And then he moves to the church and how the church should operate. Then he turns to husbands and wives. And then he speaks of what it looks like when husbands and wives are filled with the Holy Spirit.

And then he turns in chapter 6 to talk about what children look like when they're filled with the Holy Spirit. They obey their parents and they honor their father and mother. And by the way, if you have a child who's not honoring their father and mother, it's because they are walking according to the Spirit of the devil, not the Spirit of God. That's the truth. And then workers, he takes that on in chapter 6 as well.

How should workers operate with their employers? What does it look like to be filled with the Holy Spirit when you're at work? And he defines that. So the Apostle Paul is working through this reasoning about what it looks like to be filled with the Holy Spirit. There's never been a time when there's so much confusion about the filling of the Holy Spirit.

And people think the work of the Holy Spirit is isolated to some of these outward manifestations are falling on the ground. No, the Bible says when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, there's a way that you treat each other. It has to do with the way you love people. That's the chief manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It's love toward others.

And so the Apostle Paul is working through this whole matter. And the first thing that he deals with is submission and headship. And he begins with wives and he says, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. And what he's saying is that when God gives a husband to a wife, then what he has done is he has given that wife someone to focus her submission toward. She doesn't submit to every man in the world, although she does have a responsibility to submit to the civil government in a way that is according to the Word of God.

And she does also exist under the authority of a local church, and she must submit to the authority of the local church. But she has a particular authority in her life that's greater than all the other authorities and that is to her husband. And he says here that she submits as to the Lord. In other words, the same way that she submits to the Lord, she submits to her husband. And her submission to the Lord is actually demonstrated by her submission to her husband.

Again, there's that comparison. She submits to her husband as she submits to the Lord. And there's much that can be said about that, but her submission cannot be submission to doing evil in her husband's behalf. She cannot disobey the Lord while submitting to her husband. She submits to her husband as unto the Lord.

And then he says, for the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church. And what we learn here in verse 25 is that what God has done is He's given a head to a wife. Now the Apostle Peter says that a wife is a weaker vessel. Perhaps this is one of the reasons God gives a head to a wife. And that means that he stands in a position of authority in his wife's life.

At the same time, Peter also says that husbands should honor their wives. In other words, there are ways that husbands put themselves underneath their wives and they honor their wives. But at the same time, that doesn't abrogate the fact that God has established headship in marriage. And a husband is a head of a wife. And it's a reality of the creation order that God has established the necessity of headship in a wife's life.

And he makes this comparison, as also Christ is head of the church. And He is the Savior of the body. So Christ, who is the Savior of the body, is being manifested in a husband who sees himself as someone who is rescuing his wife. Now he doesn't rescue his wife by atoning for her sins. That's ridiculous.

There's only there's there's one mediator between God and man. And it's not a husband. So he's not talking about atonement. He's talking about the way that a husband sees himself in the life of his wife, that he is there to rescue her, and He is the Savior of the body. And then He says in verse 24, therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Now, this all would have been so nicely stated unless those words, in everything, appeared in the text. And what the Apostle Paul is saying is that the submission of a wife is designed to be a comprehensive submission. It is a willing submission, but it's a comprehensive submission. And that she ought to desire to obey her husband in everything, unless it's illegal or immoral. Then she cannot obey her husband in what is illegal or immoral.

Which is obvious. But what God has done as He's established order and authority in the world, He's designed that a wife would submit to her husband in everything. But wives often think, well, I'll submit to my husband in most things. But a wife should be very careful not to allow her own emotions to lead her, but to recognize that God has commanded her to submit to her own husband in everything. Do I have to submit to my husband if it's unwise?

Probably. Do I have to submit to my husband if it's illegal? Absolutely not. And then he says, for the husband, and then he says, husbands love your wives. So he turns from the instruction to wives and the reality of the headship that God has placed in her life.

And then he turns to husbands. And he says, husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her. So now we come to what is one of the most remarkable declarations in the entire Bible. That a man is not... He is not his own.

He's not a living picture of a hyper-patriarchal, domineering jerk who's telling everybody what to do. He loves his wife as Christ loved the church. And so every husband must understand Christ's love for the church. He needs to understand Christology. He needs to understand the doctrine of Jesus Christ if he has any hope of demonstrating the love of Jesus Christ for his wife.

Because he gets his lines from Christ. He gets his role from Jesus Christ. And he has no authority to step out of that role. And he has no authority before God to just say whatever he wants to say. And so many of the problems in marriages happen because men think they can just say whatever they want to say.

And as a result, they've thrown off the entire metaphor that they were designed to fulfill in their marriages. The chief study of a husband is Christology. The chief study of a wife is, ought to be ecclesiology. A girl when she's growing up needs to understand the doctrine of the church. How can she possibly understand her role as a wife unless she understands the role of the church.

And I just encourage you husbands and your wives here who are raising up daughters, make sure they understand the doctrine of the church. They need to know that because they're playing the role of the church their whole life long in their marriage. Make sure they understand the doctrines of the faith, make sure they are very well studied in ecclesiology, and that the boys understand Christology as well. And I'm not saying that these are exclusive things that neither can understand, but absolutely you have to know that by implication a young boy needs to understand the doctrine of Christ and a woman needs to understand the doctrine of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, I got a call from a man a few years ago, and he asked me a question about a courtship that he was considering.

There was a young man who wanted to marry his daughter. And he told me a few things and he was asking my opinion because he was screening this young man and he said, but you know one thing really bothers me. His family has never really ever been part of a church. And they've gone from church to church to church to church and they've gone through long seasons where they've never been part of a church. He said, what do you think about that?

I said, brother, how in the world can you expect this young man to love your daughter in the way that Christ loved the church if he has never really loved the church of Jesus Christ himself. He doesn't really care about the church. But when you're part of a church, you learn how to love. Because when you're in a church, you're with a bunch of really imperfect people. And you're with some really messed up people, you're with wise people, you're with foolish people, you're with rich people, you're with poor people, you're with the young, you're with the old, you're in a family and it's a very diverse family.

And it's in a church where you learn how to love. You learn how to love people that are really different than you. Maybe, you know, like I was when I got saved in Southern California, I was a, you know, a cool surfer boy and I went into the church and I thought, wow, these are so, These people are so uncool, you know. That's what I thought. But then I loved them.

But is it because I had the love of Jesus Christ? But how can, how can it, My question to the man was, how can this young man love your daughter who is a representative of the church? He's had no love for the church. He's had no experience in how to deal with imperfect people and how to be patient with them, and how to be a brother, and a friend in a church. How can he possibly love your daughter?

My advice to him was, run like the wind from this young man. Why? Because a young man should demonstrate that he loves the church so that when he gets married He can extend the same patience and the same grace toward his wife So husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church, and He gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word." And here, The Apostle Paul gives directions to husbands about how they wash and cleanse their wives. It's by the Word of God. That means every husband should be filling his wife's mind with the Word of God, bringing her to hear good preaching, studying, reading things together, reading the Word of God together.

A husband needs to be washing his wife with the Word of God. Why? That he might present her, verse 27, to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish." So the washing of the water, the Word, is a way that He works out the wrinkles and the spots in her life. Because every wife gets married with wrinkles and spots. And they take really a lifetime of working out.

You know, every girl should recognize, you know, when she gets married, what are my wrinkles, what are my spots? But there's something really strange about this wrinkle and spot metaphor here. Did you see it? Do you see how odd it is, how contrary it is to nature? Because when you get married, like I married my wife when she was 20, and she didn't have wrinkles and spots on the outside.

But now, she does have some wrinkles and some spots. So somehow the Apostle Paul is indicating that When a wife gets married, she might not have wrinkles and spots on the outside, but she's got them on the inside. And that's the way it is in marriage. And you start out with more wrinkles and spots than you end up with because of the ministry of Jesus Christ in your life. And so marriage, you know, is part of working out the spots in the wrinkles over time.

It's called progressive sanctification. It's called the work of the Holy Spirit as He faithfully ministers to us, as He reveals sin to us progressively throughout our lives. The Lord is very kind. He doesn't reveal everything to us at one time. He reveals it progressively over time.

And the same thing happens with the wife. She gets married with a lot of spots and wrinkles on the inside, but not on the outside. You know, maybe that's because God in His wisdom would want to lure men to marry women, they can't see all the spots and wrinkles on the inside, so he makes sure that they have none on the outside. And so he puts them together, and they work together for the glory of God. And they know who they are.

They know that their lives are not their own. That a husband isn't his own man. He's not playing his own game. He's not creating his own world. He's not doing his own thing.

He's a representative of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is his Lord. And he follows Jesus Christ. He walks in the ways of the wisdom of Jesus Christ. He's not his own man.

And when anything happens in his marriage, he understands who he is and what his lines are. And he knows where to get his lines. He gets his lines out of the Word of God. He's not free to say whatever he wants to say and do whatever he wants to do. He honors his wife as the weaker vessel, and he washes her with the water of the word.

And he gives his life up for her, because in Christianity, the men die for the women. That's Christianity. In paganism, the women die for the men. And that's what we have in the US military today. It's a vision of paganism that has engulfed our entire world.

And a wife. She gets married and she knows who she is. She's the church. And when her husband is sinning, falling short in some way, She remembers that she's not her own. She remembers that she has a role to play, completely exclusive of her husband, regardless of what her husband does.

She has a role to play. She has lines to deliver. She knows who she is. She belongs to Jesus Christ. She fears God and she fears no man.

And she's just like Sarah, who's not frightened by any fear, because she knows that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them because she has all of her hope in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ alone her hope is in her children it's not in her church her hope is not in her husband, her hope is in God. And this is how the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ is worked out in a marriage. When you know who you are, and you know your role, and you know where to get your lines. So the question is, do you know that? Do you know why you got married?

Do you know that you were painting a picture of the kingdom of heaven? And you've been painting, some of you, for a long time. And what does the picture look like now? Is it an ugly picture? It can be an ugly, it can be, there are ugly pictures being painted.

But Here is the power of the Gospel that Jesus Christ can teach you how to paint again. Some things might need to be erased off that canvas and begin again and to paint a picture of the love of Jesus Christ and a picture of a glorious church, a picture of a happy kingdom, the kingdom of heaven that will never fade away. This is the glory of God in a marriage. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, I pray that you would fall upon this people, upon all of us, upon me, and that you would help us to know that we are not our own.

We were bought with a price. Oh Lord, we thank you that you have commanded us to live in a certain way so that we would not play out our own story, but that we would declare the beauty of this great story, this world of love, this work of heaven. Oh God, I pray that you would grant it here in this church. I pray that if there's repentance that you would cause a great wave of repentance in the hearts of any husbands and wives who are here. Any single people here who have been thinking wrong that they would repent of their sins and turn to you so that they could represent you because they cannot represent you now.

And they never will be able to until they turn to you. So I pray God that you would also work salvation and that you would convict of sin and that you would cause a wave of repentance in any homes that are necessary here today. Oh God, I pray you would do all these things by the power of your Holy Spirit according to your word. Amen. Thank you.